IPO floods KDG’s managers with cash    
Written by Jörn Krieger  
Sunday, 14 March 2010 20:04
kabel_deutschlandUp to €32.1m could end up in the pockets of Kabel Deutschland’s (KDG) top executives and supervisory board members when Germany’s largest cable operator floats on the Frankfurt stock exchange on March 22.

According to German news magazine Focus, KDG’s owners offered loans to its top managers in the past years at preferential conditions with interest rates between 3.0 and 5.5% - apparently as an incentive enabling them to purchase shares in the company. At the IPO, they can sell a quarter of their stakes, KDG confirmed.

The largest beneficiary will probably be Tony Ball, former BSkyB CEO and now member of KDG’s supervisory board, whose package is believed to amount to considerably more than €50m, depending on the share price set for the IPO (between €21.50 and €25.50). Ball received a loan of €11m, according to the report.

KDG’s CEO Adrian von Hammerstein owns shares amounting to a value of more than €2m. His loan was for €1.2m, the report says. Executive board member Manuel Cubero’s share value is believed to be more than €6m; he took a loan of €960,000. Both executives apparently have options to acquire more shares.

Another beneficiary is Heinz Riesenhuber, the head of KDG’s supervisory board. Germany’s former minister for research, who received a loan of €449,000, holds shares amounting to more than €1m. KDG did not want to comment on this issue.

© Rapid TV News 2010